Stacking DVDs, CDs and books.. it was just easier to put it on the floor than to find a clear surface, right?

Not any more.

CDs & DVDs

1. Rip & Store them Digitally

Then you can burn and rip all of those songs and movies onto your computer, and store it on an elegant external hard drive such as this one:

Western Digital Passport Elite - 500GB Portable Hard Drive

Western Digital just released a 1TB external hard drive, selling for $400 USD.

1TB = 1000 GB

And 1000 GB = 1,000,000 MB

1,000,000 MB = A lot of space.

You can buy one of those, or a 500GB or lower hard drive to store your files, so you can eliminate (or sell?) your CDs and DVDs altogether.

2. Keep the DVDs & CDs and put them in binders

If you aren’t sentimental, throw out the jewel cases and all the packaging that comes on a DVD and CD.

It probably cuts down the clutter by about 80%, because you can fit 128 CDs into a large elegant binder that takes up MUCH less space and room.

You can convert 3-ring binders into CD holders as well. You just need the 3-ring binder, and the CD sleeves to slot into them.

Why a big binder? A big binder takes up less space than a whole stack of CDs and DVDs, and you can flip through every movie or CD without having to deal with running your finger over every spine.

Check out this cool option to put it into a binder and call it a day:

It looks like a book!

3. Keep the packaging & stack them nicely

Alternatively, stack them nicely on the bookshelf in some personal Dewey Decimal system.

Either by colour, by band, by year, whatever.

You can also mix them up with your books.

Books

1. Digitize your books

Consider getting an e-reader and moving all of your heavy, dust-covered books into a neat little device.

The Kindle and Sony E-Readers are expensive right now, but I’ve heard that Asus is coming out with a dual screen, coloured e-ink, wi-fi compatible e-reader for $165!

Conceptual Asus E-Book Reader for $165

E-Readers can also hold thousands of books, because each book is only 1MB or so. If you have 10 GB of space, that’s a whole library or 10,000 books.

2. Pare down on your collection

Other than that, the options for organizing books is pretty limited because they’re big, heavy and they take up space.

I’d suggest getting rid of books you haven’t read nor want to keep on your shelf because while this is cool, you may not want to end up with this:

Try donating your books to those who might need and read them. Hospitals, Libraries and Offices are good places to start.

The more space you have on your shelf, the nicer it looks, and you are able to add more books as you go along.

You can even put little decorations to make it sexier, or add little sliding panels to hide the CDs and DVDs as shown below:

There are plenty of options and ways to organize your collection of books, DVDs and CDs out there.

All you have to do, is get them off the floor first, and make a decision.